1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a devices for the extraction of chemical samples, and particularly to a sample extraction device for automating extraction from one or more chemical samples.
2. Description of the Related Art
Traditional laboratory chemical extraction and manipulation has several drawbacks. Liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) is generally used as a pretreatment process to clean up or pre-concentrate a target species prior to chromatographic analysis of organic substances. Similar techniques are applied in a wide variety of analyses and experiments, such as the study of crude oil mixtures and the like. However, the methods that have traditionally been used in the laboratory for liquid chemical extraction require complicated operation processes, a great deal of time, high cost, particularly when it comes to lost or damaged equipment due to human error, health damage due to the use of organic solvents and the like, and high expense involved with the disposal of toxic organic solvents and the like.
Further, conventional sample extraction and manipulation devices typically only extract and process a single material at a time. Separate devices are often used for related processing steps, such as one device being used for heating and a separate device being used for mixing. In order to increase efficiency, and minimize the possibility of human error, it would be desirable to provide a single system capable of performing multiple processing functions in sample extraction and processing.
Thus, a sample extraction device solving the aforementioned problems is desired.